Nicholas’s Journey – He Was Sixteen, Going On Seventeen

Posted by Daniel

Nicholas’s journey has been remarkably static. In week 1 of the live shows, we were told that Nicholas was 16 and had never heard of Spandau Ballet; in week 2, we were told he was 16 and had never fallen in love; in week 3, we were told he was 16 and had never used a washing machine. I could go on.

You wouldn’t exactly call it a twist, but the wee lad turned 17 in week 7. We were reminded of this in weeks 8 and 9 – no doubt we’ll get further confirmation in this weekend’s final. The most interesting moment in Nick’s personal story has thus been…. a birthday. As plot developments go, it isn’t much.

A more interestingly debatable storyline is just how much producers have been out to get him. Stoney suggested in our comments section that Nick has been treated worse than Christopher Maloney from week 7; Fudd disagreed. What does rewatching his footage tell us?

Firstly, producers have played up his natural appeal to the Scots and mum/nans. You could say that there was no point fighting the tide, but his regional and demographic support was allowed to flourish from the start.

Nicholas’s Scottishness has been a constant – mentor Louis Walsh has outdone even his own penchant for repetition. “Everybody in Scotland is going to be proud of you tonight,” he said in week 1. “All of Scotland is behind you,” he said in week 5. “Scotland’s finest”, got to sing at Hampden Park in his week 7 VT. By week 8, Louis was using the “flower of Scotland” tag, and in week 9, he had honed it to, “You’re a role model for every young person in Scotland.” Nick was wearing tartan on his shirt.

The pitch to mums and nans was also unflagging. Nicole first spoke of his “baby blue eyes” in week 1 after Gary admitted “she wants to adopt you”. Week 2’s VT saw Nicole taking this further by flirtatiously visiting Nick as he rehearsed for ‘She’s The One’.

His performance of the Robbie Williams number included a love interest who was obviously older, prompting Sharon to jealously wonder who the “paed-io-phile” was. Nicole repeated the “baby blue eyes” line in weeks 4, 6 and 7. The “baby Buble” description was used in weeks 2, 3 and 5 – he was styled accordingly.

So, we’ve been told again and again that Nicholas is sixteen/seventeen, Scottish and just a “baby”. Not so much a journey, more a series of memes. By repeatedly pushing these buttons to the point of boredom, there’s a case for the idea that producers have deliberately limited his appeal elsewhere. If you’re not Scottish, and don’t want to mother Nicholas, you may have found this barrage annoying.

At this point, it’s worth reminding readers we’re assuming producers don’t want Nicholas taking the crown, given that he fits the mould of previous winners Joe McElderry and Leon Jackson, who turned out to be commercial flops. It’s why we could only place him second in our pre-lives 1-12 prediction.

Nonetheless, beyond the pitch to his natural fanbase, there have been other positive aspects to Nick’s treatment. The staging has generally been helpful, if at times a little cheesy: he got starry backdrops in week 1 for ‘True’ and week 4 for ‘Rock With You’; lighting has also been sympathetic – occasionally golden, as it was in week 5 for ‘Dream a Little Dream’.

Week 2’s high-concept staging, with a parade of women walking past him, was rather bizarre. But according to the usually accurate Daily Star spoilers, it didn’t stop him winning that week’s phone vote with the demo-delighting ‘She’s The One’.

There are a few reasons for thinking that his vote in the next few weeks was less impressive. As stoney suggests, he probably didn’t do that well in week 3 if producers are happy for him to reprise ‘Angel’ in the final; whilst his following Disco Week performance was underwhelming.

Otherwise, why would producers feel comfortable enough to let Nick have a big moment in week 6? It’s worth noting that they will probably have felt the need to give him a pimp slot at some point. It would’ve looked pretty obvious otherwise to his motivated fanbase. (Producers haven’t been so worried about Luke, who hasn’t yet performed last and will probably never have the honour.)

Still, it wasn’t just a pimp slot they allowed him, it was a pimp slot pimping. His VT then had him being stalked by enthusiastic teenage fans, responding to lots of fanmail and telling us he was single. He was allowed to perform the hugely popular ‘Someone Like You’, pretty much the most iconic pop song of the last few years. The rest of the show was lacklustre by comparison. It was no surprise when the Daily Star leaked that he had topped the public vote.

The brakes have been applied more firmly since then. Firstly, Nick’s running order positions have become even more unfair. Before that pimping – 2, 3, 4, 7, 3; after it – 1, 1/1, 2/1.

Nick also faced indirect but unfavourable comparisons to his rivals. In week 7, producers couldn’t have made it clearer which of the two market leaders they preferred. Sam Bailey got the pimp slot singing the global hit ‘Bleeding Love’, whilst Nick had to perform Xmas Number 2 ‘The Climb’ from the graveyard slot.

It carried on into week 8. Nick was criticised for not being “a lion” and failing to own the stage for ‘Just The Way You Are’, just before Sam was introduced as “a lioness” and proceeded to dominate the stage for ‘How Will I Know’.

In the same week, Gary questioned Nick’s “individuality” whilst admiring Luke Friend for having a “lane of his own”. Even mentor Louis, having named Nicholas for the win in a radio interview, indicated that it was now Luke he favoured most. Andrew has suggested that the pendulum swings in Luke’s treatment have reflected prodcuers’ feelings on the need to provide a spoiler to Nicholas, maybe motivating the decision to save the Devon lad last weekend.

Nick’s plinths got bigger, week 7 being one notable example. Combined with his styling, the overall effect was to make Wee Nick look even more wee. In some of his earlier performances, the dancers when present had been relatively discreet. They were more distracting for ‘Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me’ in week 9, to the disapproval of Sharon Osborne. The “baby Buble” description has been put to bed.

But it’s not been all bad since the week 6 high point. There’s been talk of what would be on his album. He’s been given gold lighting every week. ‘Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me’ was demo-pleasing and suited Nicholas perfectly, as the panel noted. There were also two references to “the little boy from Glasgow” last weekend. Nick is actually from Wishaw, just outside Motherwell, just outside Glasgow – and considerably smaller.

It seems likely that the deramping tactics will crank up a gear for the final, when as our commenters have mentioned, Motherwell or even tiny Wishaw – not Glasgow – will be the hometown of focus. The duet with former Westlifer Shane Filan and separate song choice of Robbie Williams’ ‘Candy’ seem far less promising than what Luke and Sam have been given.

Overall then, I think there have been surprisingly few signs of panic on the part of producers. They allowed Nick his moment in week 6, and whilst the deramping has become more obvious since then, it hasn’t been a full-on assault. To do so may only have been counter-productive anyway. Instead we have had a series of slow punctures that the general public weren’t likely to pick up on.

The reason to have a semi-final singoff will never likely be known. But if the idea behind it was to get Nicholas out, why the suitable, demo-delighting second song and the two Glasgow references? Why was Luke not pimped if he was more likely to overhaul Wee Nick than Rough Copy? What this suggests to me is that producers are happy to have him in the final and feel that his vote is under control, even with the Scottish behind him.

This may not be a position that some of you agree with. Feel free to post your thoughts on this and Nick’s journey in general below.

29 comments to Nicholas’s Journey – He Was Sixteen, Going On Seventeen

hi Daniel you fail to mention his 5 out of 6 opening slots leading up to the final. I think that’s the biggest assault on him along with clearly unsuitable songs. Well it’s just been announced hel be singing flying without wings with shane filan, so at least he will have 2 songs to showcase his voice in the final. I expected them to be singing any old iron

It seems the mainstream press are as aware as savvy punters as to the intent behind XF’s choice of singing partner for wee Nic.This will boost wee Nic’s underdog appeal.

I find it difficult to see it as a negative. Kian Egan has just proved the enduring popularity of the Westlife boys, by just winning the other major ITV1 reality show. The mum and nan vote now has lovely Nic and one of those lovely lads from Westlife to vote for.

It also links up and reinforces the whole Scottish-Irish Celtic support. One question / ryder here though: do the Irish get to vote in XF? I’m a bit hazy on that one. Whatever though -because there’s many, many people of Irish ancestry (in the North-West of England for example), so in a number of ways, Nic’s vote will be strengthened and extended by the choice of Shane Filan as his duet partner.

Am interested in the choice of Ellie Goulding for Luke. She’s young, current, hip, popular and her emoting will also fit well with Luke, who was all raw emotion during his survival sing-off last Saturday.

There’s been a few articles about her lack of confidence in her visual appeal lately, for example:

Personally, I find her very attractive and authentic, but I wouldn’t class her as a natural beauty. I can imagine girls really like Ellie Goulding, but I wonder if (in one way) she might make Luke (who, minus the hair, not overtly naturally handsome) seem less attractive?

But overall, a great choice for Luke, I think. And it has the vote-winning effect of seeming to establish him as heterosexual (I am not making a political statement, btw! If anyone wonders!); this can be contrasted with Nic being partnered with a bloke. It used to be the rule in beer commercials that you NEVER have just 2 blokes in the pub together, as this can can leave the suggest in the viewer’s mind that they are gay. This is why there used to always be at least 3 blokes together in beer commercials.

What’s wrong with Ellie Goulding? She seems to be a pretty good fit for Luke, and the song choice is good, as not only is it about unexpected things (dark horse, perhaps?) because last year when the girl group performed it on The X Factor USA it was easily their best performance and it unexpectedly got them through to the final. It has nothing but good connotations in the producers eyes.

I’d say ‘Flying without wings’ is definatley satisying his demo. The girls, mums and nans. I was quite surprised when I found out he’d be singing this but pleased at the same time. Maybe this will pull in the irish votes too?

I think we are assuming that the powers are all singing from the same hymn sheet. If you count the whole production team, including Mr Cowell himself, and add in the big egos of the judges, at least one of whom has a much more selfish and unpredictable agenda, then there is bound to be conflict. And I know they do pay some attention to this site and others, so I wouldn’t rule out a change of mind The methods for de-ramping and pimping have been comprehensively laid out on the site, so perhaps they are trying to subvert us? Certainly feels like that as I’ve lost money on events which I thought were dead certs. Maybe the revelations about RC at the last minute caused them to change tack? Redemption stories work well in USA, but not in UK. We know people never really change….It’s a mystery to me.

Can I be controversial and make a point most on here will disagree with. (“Please do Richard Betsfactor, it’s an open church here – love the show”).

I’d say on the “are they trying to McKnife him” Scale most commentators on here for the last couple of weeks have been 8’s and rising; Daniel is about a 2.0, I’ve always been about a 0.3. I can’t really understand why people feel it’s clear the producers didn’t/don’t want wee Nic in the final, and they would nobble him if they could.

Maybe I just look at the song choices and staging too much, but these producers are fairly savvy – if they wanted to stand a chance of getting Nicholas in the bottom two, you could pick almost any colour of staging other than gold and you give him Beyonce’s #11 classic “Me Myself and I” mixed with a VT of Louis saying “I really think it’s time we embrace different genres to show your true versatility.”

I agree with Daniel, but probably would go further.

It’s just my personal view, but I just can’t see the evidence that they wanted Nicholas in the bottom two at any point during this process. You don’t give someone “Halo” and “Don’t let the sun go down on me” if you even have the slightest feeling that you want them to be toast….

Now, as I’ve always maintained – the final is a different kettle of fish and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s nobbled in the home(rule) straight! In my view, they’ve placed him directly before Sam in the last couple of weeks so that we have that comparison, “not bad vs amazing” drip fed to us.

It seems there’s agreement that Nick and Sam are likely to have been taking the lion’s share of the votes and were far enough ahead of Luke and RC last Saturday to be effectively uncatchable. If that’s true, and if it’s also true that there’s some overlap between Nick and Luke’s voter ‘pool’, perhaps the fairly mild deramping of Nick wasn’t to move him into sing-off territory but to ensure Luke was in 3rd place by transferring some of the potential overlap votes to him.

I’m sure that behind the scenes SYCO have been looking into RC’s visa issue, and if it’s unsolvable then it could have been a deal breaker for SYCO if they’d been considering signing them, and if so there’s no motivation to give them the platform of a spot in the final.

The potential for the final to be boring isn’t because of who went through of Luke and RC, in fact Luke is the better performer of the two acts by some way. He’s also massively likeable, which RC definitely don’t seem to be. Luke’s had the dark horse underdog narrative going on for most of the series, and surviving three sing-offs as well as what so many people see as a blatant attempt at fixing the semi-final reinforces that. Especially when we’re being fed stories about how shocked and stunned everyone is and how RC were robbed when those same stories point out that, actually, Luke was more popular in the vote and is the act the voters (and by extension, the viewers) actually wanted in the final. The ‘shock’ comes from none of us knowing how close RC were to Luke for a spot in the sing off against Tamera the week before; if it was tight and Luke was guaranteed a bounce after that phenomenal sing off performance, then perhaps him finishing 3rd was expected.

Everyone – including me :p – is acting as though the XF producers are a bunch of rank amateurs that couldn’t even get the act they wanted in the final despite a blatant attempt at fixing it. But what if this result is exactly what they wanted? Luke’s definitely marketable, so the final is a great platform for him if SYCO are looking at signing him, he’s a great performer with bags of stage presence that should make it a better show than ‘can’t sing, can’t dance, probably can’t even act a little’ RC, and if the overlap vote does exist, he’ll keep Nick’s vote depressed until it’s too late and they get the SamBa winner they so blatantly want. I can’t imagine RC and Nick having much of a voter overlap.

I don’t know how much I believe this, but well, it’s out there now anyway 🙂

You’re right, they haven’t been out to kill Nicolas but they haven’t done a lot to propel him with momentum into the final. Poor slots, muted comments and while you’re right that he’s been given popular songs they haven’t always been suitable for him, I’d suggest doing a popular song badly can be more damaging than doing a popular song well.

The question is why? Why trying and dampen his vote without really going for it?

Here’s a theory. We’re only assuming Sam is running away with the vote but we’ve also heard Nicholas has topped the vote at times. Is he actually close to winning it? Are they trying to dampen him and push Sam so they don’t end up with another Leon Jackson?

There are parallel’s here. Remember when everyone thought Gareth Gates was going to win Pop Idol? Remember the shock when Will Young won!

Look at series 6. The parallels between Stacy and Joe and Sam and Nicholas are worth examining. The likeable down to earth mum who can belt out the tunes and the young, polite, grateful boy who can sing almost anything. Joe was rinsing the vote from week 7 onwards.

My gut tells me Sam is leading and is going to win but trying to make sense of what else is happening leads me to think it might not be so nailed on.

Hey Richard, I’m not sure there’s been such a big divergence of opinion here as you make out. I don’t think the consensus has been that they’ve been desperately trying to get Nick out before the final. I think it’s more that most commenters have believed the signs are they don’t want him to win (which you agree with) – and that therefore, if he happened to appear in the bottom two (and who knows if that was ever possible), they would take the chance to get rid. Isn’t it just a logical inference that, if they don’t want him to win, then they wouldn’t want him bouncing just before the final?

What confuses me is the song choices (which also applies to Christopher Maloney) and gold lighting, if I were a producer and wanted him out I’d give him red or black and force him to sing Flo Rida – surely giving him these songs and colours will only make him appealing to the ‘granny vote’?

While I do agree that producer do not want him to win, I think his vote is under control and he isn’t a true threat to Sam B and when the figures are released y’all will realise that you’re just overreacting.

Welcome to Sofabet, Penguin-Llama Hybrid. Indeed this time last year we were all puzzling over why they’d been consistently giving Chris Maloney demo-delighting song choices. I think in retrospect their thinking was that they weren’t bothered about prising away his committed fans, they were interested only in limiting his opportunities to pick up new fans. More on that line of reasoning here –http://sofabet.com/2013/01/07/x-factor-2012-review-part-1-how-many-people-vote-on-x-factor/

I’d guess the reason they don’t give Nick something like Flo Rida is probably that they worry it could backfire – what if it seems so transparently unsuitable it inspires sympathy, or what if he unexpectedly does it half-decently and broadens his appeal?

The problem I see with this is that some of the song choices are actually allowing him to appeal to people outside his allotted demographic. The main example of this is Just The Way You Are, a song by a current artist which he actually sung pretty well. Even if it isn’t THE most current song right now, it is far more relevant than anything Christopher Maloney performed last year.

Perhaps they gave him Halo (which is a fairly recent song that has a lot of cross-demographic appeal) whilst focusing on the best songs to give to the other acts only to be surprised that he was actually doing it well? This would explain the VT which mentioned him being ‘cringey’ and the fact that he couldn’t sing it very well as he hadn’t been given adequate time to perform it an that key beforehand?

If it had been planned from the very start I would have expected a VT which mentioned that the song was his toughest yet, preparing us to watch out for the glaring errors which were about to occur etc on top of the ‘cringe’ comments (ok not sure they used the word ‘cringe’ but it was at least something to that extent).

I also think that the cameras hit of Louis and Sharon was just an unfortunate camerashot, as when I’ve looked back at it it seems to me as though they both abruptly stop as though being told that this will only help Nick (who, to his credit, used the sympathy from this to the best of his ability by crying as well).

Don’t get me wrong, I am sure that the producers are against the idea of him winning (the duet and song choices for the final all but confirm this to me), but the way they are going about preventing it seems rather sloppy to me.

And thank you for the welcome, I’ve enjoyed reading the articles on this sight since the semi-final last year and thought I could add in my own thoughts.

These are good points. I suppose maybe they’ve felt the need to give him something current-ish for the same reason they felt the need to give him a pimp slot, i.e. plausible deniability – they don’t want to do anything that would be obvious enough to be summarisable in a soundbite, like “they’ve never let him close the show”, or “they’ve never let him sing anything written since he was born”. Harder to get away with nothing but dated songs for Nick than for Maloney.

Actually not sure it would be wise to make a big thing of the song being difficult, as that might inspire more sympathy for the mistakes. Am I right in remembering that Gary made a point of saying how difficult Beyonce songs are after Sam had nailed hers, but not after Nick had struggled with his?

I don’t see Nick being in the producers plans for the final at the start of the live shows. The prefered acts were presumably Sam B, Tamera and Rough Copy. They were probably happy to run with Nick as the top boy act up to 4th spot. The problem was the voters – they just kept giving Sam B and Nick too many votes and too few to the rest. Acts that have started poorly in the first couple of weeks have come back to win or make the final, but after a few weeks it was probably clear that this wasn’t going to happen with Tamera no matter how hard they pushed. So at some point they would have to accept that someone else would have to make the final. So yes why not Nick as long as he isn’t actually going to win. However I suspect that he is just too close to Sam B in the voting for comfort. I wonder if in week 8 the plan was working and he had slipped back, so whilst still 2nd the gap was looking OK. But this week maybe the tears produced a spike in the voting which brought him closer again.

It probably was what the producers envisaged, but I thought it was rather predictable that the final was Sam 1st, Nick 2nd and RC 3rd with Tamera occupying the ‘urban girl’ slot of 4th (Cher Lloyd, Misha B) regardless of any interference from TPTB, which would have been spot on if it hadn’t been for the dark horse of the series Luke, who I had pegged to be gone first (what a mistake) but I doubt anyone envisaged Luke would this far. Am I alone in thinking this?

I am encouraged to see the order of these results as it gives me confidence to back my gut feeling that Luke will have a much stronger final showing than most are predicting.

From the final three, Luke is the only act so far to have performed with a band of musicians around him and, if repeated, this could set him apart from the other performances on Saturday night. Whilst assessing the song choices and duets I am very much aware of the arena venue and the change in dynamics this will inevitably present.

Audience interaction is a big part of any successful live performance and Luke has already shown his willingness to get the crowd involved, he is a more accomplished ‘showman’ than both Sam and Nicholas, and this can only work in his favour in front of 10,000 people.

From everything I’ve seen so far during the studio shows, Luke is the one potentially most suited to the arena environment – he knows how to have fun on stage and, more importantly, convey that sentiment to the viewer through his performance. Nicholas has always come across as awkward when he attempts to move around whilst performing upbeat material (cue, Candy) and imagine just how small they could make him appear on a big Wembley stage! (btw Nick has almost as many Twitter followers as his ‘celebrity’ duet partner).

Sam has enough wow factor in her vocal to not have to worry about other aspects of the performance and that alone will sufficiently engage viewers’ emotions securing a top 2 finish.

I think 3rd place boils down to the strength of Nicholas’ regional vote versus Luke’s capacity to attract floating voters.

Based on song choices/duets and how I think Luke’s performances will play out, as described above, I’m predicting Nicholas finishes 3rd, but the 9/4 isn’t that appealing. Instead I’ll take a look at the straight forecast markets and find best prices on Sam B/Luke, Luke/Sam B (because as Luke and Ellie will soon proclaim – “Anything Could Happen”)…

1 – Luke. Totally underestimated him, I predicted him finishing 12th! (All those folks trying to score the predictions against reality, haven’t you anything better to do with your time tsk?)
But he has real stage presence and the warning sign wasn’t him being first in auditions, it was him winning that Teen Star competition. He’s got far more experience than others on the stage and hasn’t stuffed up a performance at any time. He’s had a journey from Mummy’s boy needing a haircut to “musician” and I’d see him as a serious threat in the final, if there hadn’t been a sing-off in the semi. Unfortunately there was, and he looks like a wasted vote as a result.

2. Nick – I agree with the article. Look at Janet Devlin if you want to see how they nuke a front-runner. Even with the early slots, there’s no comparison to Nick’s treatment. Shane Filan is a better choice of duet partner than others have said; he was there at judges house, he secures some Irish votes (Northern Irish / NW at least) and Westlife are on the up after I’m a Celebrity.

The only sign of producer panic with him seems to have been the semi-final sing-off. We’ll know at the weekend whether it was ever realistic to get him third; they might have been close.

I doubt he’ll be nuked in the final; there’s always more positivity around in the final although it would surprise no-one to see him on first, and Candy is an underwhelming choice. Wouldn’t surprise me to see lots of “Only Scotland is voting for you” references to try to contain him.

3) username – Guildo Horn Forever tried to guess what tpfkar stands for a couple of posts back. 1/6 I’m afraid. Remember when Prince changed his name to “The Artist Formerly Known As Prince” for a while?…. I could ask the same question about Guildo Horn Forever in fact.

4) Final – if even the papers are saying the final will be boring, I wonder if there’s a big plan to do something interesting? As wild speculation, a live appearance on the judging panel from Simon Cowell? An international element (maybe like when they all went to Disneyland last year?) A sing-off for third place? All voting free but must be done in person in London?

Didn’t you notice that Sam is going to do a pole dance and dedicate it to her husband who will jump on stage at the end and help her with some twerking (with critical parts blurred of course if exposed by accident).